Nissan Expands Mexico Lineup to Build Note Subcompact Car

The five-door model will be the third assembled at the
factory in Aguascalientes, Mexico, according to a Jan. 12
statement. Nissan will keep building the cars in China, India
and Thailand while using Mexican-made Notes for the Americas,
said Maria Eugenia Santiago, a spokeswoman in Mexico City.

Adding the Note underscores Mexico’s auto-making prowess in
a year when an industry trade group projects that output may top
3 million for the first time. Production and exports both set
records last year, with about 86 percent of the vehicles sent
abroad going to the U.S., Canada or elsewhere in Latin America.

“Mexico is on the auto industry’s radar screen, and it’s a
critical country for manufacturing,” Guido Vildozo, an auto
analyst at researcher IHS, said in a telephone interview from
Lexington, Massachusetts. “There’s cheaper labor, there’s
logistics, there are free trade agreements.”

Nissan produced more than 683,000 vehicles in Mexico last
year, a 13 percent increase from 2011, the Mexican Automobile
Industry Association said Jan. 10. Five of the top 10 auto
models sold in the nation last year were from Nissan, pushing
the company’s local market share to an industry-leading 25
percent, according to the trade group.

‘Strategic Production’

“For Nissan Americas, Mexico represents a strategic
production site for the region,” Armando Avila, vice president
of manufacturing at the Yokohama, Japan-based automaker’s Mexico
unit, said in the statement.

Assembly of the Note will begin in the second quarter,
Nissan said in the statement. The automaker is scheduled to
unveil the 2014 model tomorrow at the North American
International Auto Show in Detroit.

Nissan builds the March hatchback and Versa compact sedan
in Aguascalientes, where a $2 billion plant under construction
will become its third in Mexico after a scheduled opening by
year’s end. The automaker also will produce the NV200 taxi for
New York at its factory in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Mazda Motor Corp. (7261) said capacity at the Mexican plant it’s
building will be 21 percent larger than once planned. The
Salamanca, Mexico, factory will make Mazda2 and Mazda3 small
cars when it opens in 2014 and be able to produce 230,000
vehicles a year by March 2016, according to a company statement.

Honda Motor Co. is opening an $800 million plant in the
nearby city of Celaya. Volkswagen’s luxury carmaker Audi said
last year it would build the nation’s first luxury car plant
with an investment of $1.3 billion. It will make its Q5 sport-
utility vehicle east of Mexico City in the state of Puebla.